Open Therapy
by TiffyLee
Summary: Jasper ends up in open therapy. Read & Review!
1. Introduction

_Everyone in this story is either my friends or family, except for one person who I despise. You will be able to tell who that is by the end of the story. Everything about the people is pretty much true. _

**Open Therapy**

_**Introduction**_

**Jasper's POV**

I don't know how I ended up in this place with these people. One moment I'm in the car with my adorable loving Alice, and the next moment I'm in this room with people whose emotions are running haywire.

I looked toward the door and read the backward letters that were on the window. OPEN THERAPY. My eyes widened. Now all the hushed conversations between my family for the last couple days made sense. How when I walked into a room, they would instantly become quiet. How Emmett was always smiling at me as if he was in on some secret joke. How Alice hadn't told me where we were going and then left immediately without me.

They had signed me up for open therapy. Where people talked about their emotions and tried to understand their feelings. Who else, other then me, would now more about emotions. Heck, I could probably teach this class.

How could my family do this to me? How could _Alice_ do this to me? This had to have been Emmett's idea. He was going to pay. Every single one of them were, even Alice.

I was just about to get up and leave, when a guy walked through the door and closed it behind him, locking it in the process. I guess people have tried to leave before, not like it would stop me.

"Hello." he said, turning around to face the class. "I'm Dr. Williams, but you can just call me Nathan." He walked forward and grabbed the only empty chair left in the circle and sat down, with a smile on his face.

"Now to start the class off, I would like to go around the circle, and I want everyone to introduce themselves and tell us why you are here." He pointed to his left, where a blond girl was sitting, doing her nails. "If we could start with you young lady."

She looked up from her nails, and looked at Nathan from the corner of her eyes. "I'm Savannah, and I'm not really suppose to be here." she said, rolling her eyes to look back at her nails.

"Then why are you here?" Nathan asked her, writing everything she said down on his notebook.

She sighed in annoyance and looked back up from her nails. "My teachers think I have an attitude problem, so they said I have to come to this class or they'll fail me. Which I think they already are."

"A ninety nine on a paper is not failing." A girl from across the circle said.

"It is if there was nothing wrong with the paper." Savannah argued back.

"Ladies, ladies, calm down. Thank you Savannah. Now for the young gentleman beside you to introduce himself."

The guy bedside Savannah was slouched in his chair, with his feet crossed out in front of him. He had blue lenses sunglasses and purplish blue hair. "I'm Nicholas." He smiled, "And I'm here because I'm a sex addict." Now the smile made sense. Him and Emmett would probably get along.

"Well okay. Next." Nathan said after he finished writing in his notebook.

The girl beside Nicholas looked like his sister. "I'm Kimberly." she said, quietly. "I'm here because my parents think it will make me more open."

Nicholas laughed from beside her. "Don't lie Kim. Mom and dad sent you here to get rid of your evil side." "And you're lying problem." said the guy beside me. Kim looked down at her lap, making her hair fall into her face so I couldn't see her facial expression. I was right, they are brother and sister, and apparently so was the guy beside me.

"Next." Nathan said.

Next was the girl that had argued with Savannah. "My name is Stacy, and I'm here to support Candice." she said, holding the girl's hand that was beside her.

"No, you're here for your anger issue."

"I DON'T HAVE AN ANGER ISSUE." Stacy yelled.

"Then why are you yelling?" the girl asked.

"I'M NOT… oh." Stacy slumped her shoulders forward and hung her head.

"I'm Candice." the girl that was beside Stacy said without being prompted by Nathan. "And I'm here for you to take all of my parent's money, but hey it's okay. I don't like them anyways."

"She's here for her depression." Stacy said, squeezing Candice's hand for support. Candice looked to her left, not wanting to say anymore at the moment.

It was the guy to my right time to speak. I turned to look at him and saw that he was sitting pretty much like Nicholas had, he even had sunglasses on, but they were darker and bigger, and he had red curly hair. "I'm Richard." When he talked, I could smell a weird smell that made my senses cloud up a little. "I'm here because I have an addiction." He tilted his head to the side and lifted his arm up a little, and when he looked back up, a small cloud of smoke came out of him mouth.

"An addiction to what?" Nathan asked, even though from the look on his face he already knew he just wanted Richard to admit it.

"To many things." Richard said. Nicholas laughed and Kimberly slapped his arm to shut him up. "What, he does." Nicholas whispered, where only Kim and I could hear him.

"But what addiction are you here for?" Nathan asked calmly.

Richard smiled and Nicholas started to silently laugh again. "Pot." Richard said. He bent his head again and another puff of smoke came from him.

"I see." Nathan said, writing in his notebook. "And lastly but none the least." He said, looking up from his notebook to look at me with a smile.

I looked around the room to see that everyone else was also looking at me with confusion. I was the only one that the entire class didn't know, since apparently they had already known each other before class had started. "My name is Jasper, and I'm here as a joke." I said without thinking.

"You think my class is a joke." Nathan said, still calm.

"Oh no." I said, just realizing what I said and how it would sound to him. "My family signed me up for this class as a joke."

"Ah, I see." Nathan said, setting his pencil down. "Well since you're here, we might as well see if there is anything that you need to talk about." He rubbed his hands together. "Now it's time to get serious and solve everyone's problems."

* * *

><p><strong>I hope to make it as funny as I can, so tell me what you think of it.<strong>


	2. Savannah

_**Savannah**_

Nathan looked to his left at Savannah. "Since you started us off, why don't we start with you again."

Savannah sighed, crossing her legs at her ankles and rolled her head to look at Nathan. "Whatever."

He looked down at his notebook. "You said that your teachers say you have an anger issue. Why do you think they would say that about you?" He looked back up at her with his pencil in his hand, ready to write.

"No clue." She said, leaning her head back and closing her eyes, feeling bored. Stacy scoffed from across the room. "You're here because you back talk your teacher for giving you a ninety nine instead of a hundred."

Savannah suddenly leaned forward out of her chair to look at Stacy with a deadly look. "There is nothing ever wrong with my papers."

"Well apparently there is to the teachers." Stacy argued back at her.

"Only because the teachers don't know what they're doing."

"You're just angry because you can't get what you want and your daddy can't fix it for you."

Savannah violently stood up from her seat, filled with so much anger that I wanted to hit someone myself. "You better shut up about my father."

"Or what? You're going to get your daddy to fight me since you can't do anything for yourself?" By now Stacy was standing up as well and they were both in the middle of the circle, mere feet from each other.

"No, but you'll wish he was here for him to pull me off of you." Savannah raised her fist, about to punch Stacy in the nose, but suddenly Nicholas and Candice jumped up from there chairs and ran to stop the fight about to break out. Nicholas grabbed Savannah and pulled her to his chest, while Candice grabbed hold of Stacy pinning her arms to her sides and pulling her backward out of the circle.

Nathan was now standing in the middle of the circle, his hands spread out as if trying to fend both girls off each other even though they were both the opposite sides of the circle by now. "Lady's, lady's. There's no need to get physical."

Nicholas grinned. "You have to wait for the pudding first, then you can have at it." I watched as his hands started to roam down to Savannah's legs.

Savannah started to squirm in Nicholas's arms. She got free and turned around and slapped Nicholas across the face, which did near to nothing to him. I heard the rest of the class laugh at Nicholas's expense.

Nathan put his hands down and looked at the girls that had disrupted the class. "Please take you seats." When they did, he slowly went back to his own seat, keeping an eye on both of the girls to make sure they didn't try to start something again. "If it is not you turn to speak, then I would like it if you wouldn't speak unless asked otherwise."

I felt smugness radiating from Savannah while she glared at Stacy.

Nathan grabbed his notebook and pencil and wrote a few things in it. When he was done, he looked up at Nicholas. "I believe it's your turn."


	3. Nicholas

_**Nicholas**_

"You are here for your…" Nathan looked down at his notebook.

"His sex addiction." Kimberly said in a small voice.

"Thank you Kim." Nathan said looking up to smile at her then looked to her right at Nicholas. "How do you think we could take care of your problem?"

"I don't see it as a problem. There is nothing wrong in having a very active sexual life." Nicholas answered, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Do you not worry about getting someone pregnant or getting a disease?" Nathan asked him.

"He can't get anyone pregnant." Someone said from across the room. I looked over to see that it was Stacy again.

"Why do you say that?" Nathan looked at Stacy with confusion coming off of him wanting to know how Stacy would know something like that about him.

"Nicholas and I dated for two years. He doesn't like to wear protection, but I never once got knocked up." Stacy glared at Nicholas with hatred.

"How do you know that there isn't something wrong with you?" Nicholas argued across the circle.

"You cheated on me twenty two times and none of the girls have ever gotten pregnant. Unless there is something wrong with each and every girl you've slept with, then the problem is you."

"Well then, since you don't have to worry about getting someone pregnant, then what about diseases?" Nathan asked.

"Why would he be worried about diseases?" Stacy interrupted once again. "Look at him. He probably already has a few diseases." I looked at Nicholas, who was wearing shabby clothes that hung loosely on him, his pants shredded so much that it looked like fabric was just hanging off of him. His high tops had holes to where you could see his socks. His once white hoodie was covering in dirt and holes as well. His knees, which you could see through the holes in his pants, were scratched up as if played roughly. "Who would even want to sleep with someone who looked like that?"

"You did." Nicholas reminded her. "Many times." He lifted his eyebrows in a way that was suppose to be seductive.

"You use to not look like this." Stacy said, looking away from Nicholas.

"Keep telling yourself that, cause I've always looked like this." Nicholas took off his sunglasses to look at Stacy clearly. "So if you weren't with me for my looks, then it must have been for the sex."

Kimberly suddenly raised her hands and put them on her ears. "I don't want to hear about my brothers sex life." she said, making the first real sound since the class started.

"Well, I think we've covered what we can with you Nicholas." He turned to Kimberly. "I do believe it's your turn Kim." he said with a smile.


	4. Kimberly

_**Kimberly**_

"So which problem do you want to cover?" Nathan asked, flipping the page in his notebook to look at what he had written. "You needing to be more open, you're lying problem, or as Nicholas put it, getting rid of your evil side." He looked back up at Kim.

"I don't really care." she said quietly, but loud enough for the class to hear.

"Well from what I've seen today, we need to work on getting you to be more open." Nathan set his notebook and pencil down in his lap. "Do you know anyone in this class other then your brothers."

"Almost everyone." she said, looking toward me.

"Who here do you not know?" Nathan asked her.

She nodded toward me, but didn't say a word.

Nathan turned to me. "Would you like to introduce yourself?"

"We already introduced ourselves." I reminded, just wanting to get up and walk out of this class.

"Introduce yourself further." Nathan said, making it so that I had no choice.

I sighed and looked down in my lap, closing my eyes. "My name is Jasper Hale. I am adopted my Dr. Carlisle Cullen. I have a twin sister named Rosalie. I have two brothers named Emmett and Edward, and I have a girlfriend named Alice. I like history and playing baseball with my family. We move around a lot, so there is never any point to get to know anyone new." I looked back up at Nathan, signaling that I wasn't saying anything more.

"Well, okay." Nathan said, finishing writing everything I had just said. "Now that you know everyone, do you think that you'll feel a little more comfortable talking to the class?" he asked, turning back to Kimberly.

Before she could answer, she was interrupted by someone. This time it wasn't Stacy. "You don't know me." Savannah said.

Kimberly slowly turned her head to stare at Savannah. "Oh, but I do." she said in a quiet but sort of scary voice. "You're the kind of girl who looks like she should be on the cheerleading squad, but you don't because you think it'll make you look too preppy, but still dresses preppy. You're into volleyball and softball, and you get straight A's, but you cry when you don't get a hundred on something, but then you daddy goes out and buys you something pretty to make you feel all better." The corner of Kimberly lips turner up before she looked back down at her lap, making her hair fall into her face.

Savannah was about to comment on that but she too was interrupted. "See, I told you she was evil." Nicholas said, while poking Kim in the arm. "Did everyone else not hear the evil in her voice and see how she turned her head to look at Savannah?" He looked around the room, while still poking Kim in the arm.

"Stop it." I heard Kim say to Nicholas so that he was the only one who was suppose to hear. Nicholas poked her one last time then dropped his arm by his side. "It's not that I don't feel comfortable talking." she said, but this time out loud so that the entire class was meant to hear. "It's just that I don't feel like talking."

"Okay, then maybe we need to move onto your lying problem." Nathan said calmly.

"I don't have a lying problem." She said, still looking at her lap.

"Right. What about when you were talking to 'Candice' when you killed your sisters phone talking to Jared." Candice said, putting air quotes around her name.

"Or when you didn't remember where you got your 'bruises' on your arm when your dad asked you about them." Stacy said.

"My dad can die for all that I care." Kimberly said under her breath, meant for no ones ears.

"Or when you were at work, but they let you go home early but you went to a 'friends' house then called home a few hours later." Nicholas said, slowly lifting his around to start poking Kimberly again.

"Okay, I get it." Kim said, finally lifting her head to look at the class that was ganging up on her. "Stop it." She looked out of the corner of her eye to look at Nicholas. His finger hesitated by her arm, as if he was going to poke her again, but thought better of it and dropped to his side again.

"Well if everything they said is true, then it appears that you do have a lying problem." Nathan said, his eyebrows raised at Kim as if daring her to abject to it again.

"Whatever." she said, looking back down at her lap.

"Who do you lie to?" Nathan asked.

"Mainly to our parents." Nicholas answered for her when he saw that she wasn't going to say anything.

"She has more of a problem with her evil side then she does with lying." Candice said, smiling at something she must have done. I noticed that half the class smiled with her, I guess also remembering something she had done as well.

"What happens when her evil side comes out?" Nathan asked. It sounded like he didn't really want to know the answer.

"Oh her evil side is always out." Richard said, causing a cloud of smoke to come out of his mouth when he answered.

"I can tell that she did something, so what was it?" Nathan asked, getting annoyed with curiosity.

Kimberly snickered with menace. "It started with me putting a piece of tape on the back door of the bus, so that when you opened the door the siren wouldn't go off. Then I paid this kid on the bus, that had a unique talent that, to do something when I told him to. That's when the real fun started." Kim looked at Candice out of the corner of her eye and shared a secret smile. "That next morning, I told the kid that the plan was in action, and told him when to do his part. When we were coming up to the gas station that was by our route, the kid threw up suddenly. You see, his talent was that he could puke whenever he wanted to, without having to do anything to cause the gag reflex." She closed her eyes and shook her head, laughing silently. "The bus driver pulled the bus into the gas station and went in to get some paper towels, that's when it was my turn in the plan. I slid out of my seat, threw the door open and jumped out the back, rushing to the road toward the trashcan that was waiting for pickup. I dumped the trash out and rushed back to the bus, towing the trashcan behind me. Tiffany handed me my rope that I had stashed in my bag and I tied it to the trashcan as she tied it to the bus, making sure that there was no way it would come untied."

"That's when mine and Candice's part came in." Stacy said, smiling so big that it must be hurting her face. "Candice and I grabbed Erin and dragged her to the back of the bus, and threw her out it."

"I grabbed Erin before she hit the ground and, with everyone's help we shoved her into the trashcan." Kim said. "By then, the bus driver had already cleaned the throw up and was starting the bus, about to leave. We all climbed back into the bus and closed the door, quickly getting back to our seats before the driver noticed anything out of the ordinary."

"So you had her drug behind the bus?" Nathan asked, shocked that someone so innocent looking like Kimberly would even think about doing something like that, must less actually doing it.

"Yes." she said as if she did something like that everyday. "But when we got to the school, Candice and Stacy took their time gathering their things, while Tiffany and I went and cut her lose."

Nathan looked at Kimberly a moment longer before looking down at his notebook. "So why would you do something like that to Erin?"

"Because my cousin can be such a brat." Candice answered. My eyes widened at that. She helped do something like that to her own family?

"And who is this Tiffany that you keep mentioning?" he asked after he got over his shock.

"My twin sister." Kim answered, smiling at the look on his face when he found out that there were two of them.

"Okay." Nathan said, quickly flipping a page in his notebook. "I think we're done with you for now. How about we go onto you now Stacy?"


	5. Stacy

_**Stacy**_

"So you're here for your angry issue." Nathan stated calmly, finally getting over Kimberly's evil side.

"I don't have an angry issue!" Stacy tried to say calmly, but I could feel her annoyance in the matter.

"You always say that." Candice said, taking a deep breath and putting a hand on Stacy's shoulder. "It doesn't make it any less true." Kimberly snickered but tried to hide it by hiding behind her hair. Nicholas laughed out loud, not even bothering to hide it. Stacy lifted her hand and flipped Nicholas the bird.

Nathan raised his eyebrows and scribbled something in his notebook. "No problem at all." I heard him say sarcastically under his breath. "How do you take out your anger?" Nathan asked.

"I-" Stacy started.

"She yells at people." Candice interrupted.

"I do not yell at people." Stacy said rather loudly.

"You did when that one guy walked past our table and called me a name. I had to grabbed hold of you and push you back into your seat so you didn't attack him." Candice said, smiling.

"And when we were taking a picture at prom and some guys jumped into our picture, you yelled at them to go away." Kimberly said behind her hair.

"And when we went to the movies, but they canceled the show we were going to watch for a midnight showing of another movie." Nicholas stated.

"What helps you calm down?" Nathan asked.

"My favorite chips." Stacy said, reaching down to grab her backpack and started to search through it. After a few seconds she started to feel angry. "Where are they? I know I put them in here before we left the house." She started to pull things out of her bag.

"Maybe you didn't." Candice said, picking up the things she pulled out.

"I know I put them in here." Stacy said, looking up. She suddenly stood up and dropped her backpack on the ground. "Where did you get those?" she asked, looking toward me. She stormed across the room and swung her hand back as if she was going to him me, not that it would cause me any pain, but then I realized that she wasn't talking to me. Her hand swung forward and snatched the bag out of Richard's hands and looked into the bag. "You ate all my Salt & Vinegar chips."

"They didn't have your name on them." Richard said, taking another puff of whatever he had.

"They were in _my _bag." Stacy yelled, her face getting red. "If you quit smoking pot, you wouldn't have the munchies." She pushed him and he fell back in the chair, laughing. "You're lucky I have my Reese's." She picked her bag back up and sat down, pulling out a big bag of small Reese's cups.

"Fat ass." Kimberly muttered under her breath, but Stacy heard her since they were sitting beside each other.

Stacy turned to her with her mouth gaped open. "What did you call me?"

"I believe she called you a fat ass." Nicholas said, laughing at the expression on Stacy's face.

"I thought we were friends." Stacy asked, shock still emitting from her.

"I'm not your twin." Kim stated, smiling smugly at her.

I could feel Stacy getting mad, so I sent a lot of soothing feelings to her, but it was as if she was immune to it. I could already tell that this class wasn't going to do anything for her.


	6. Candice

_**Candice**_

"Why are you depressed?" Nathan asked after the awkward silence, with Stacy silently fuming with anger. There was no way I could calm her down.

When it was obvious that Candice wasn't going to answer, Stacy decided to. It seemed that she just couldn't keep her mouth closed when it wasn't her turn. "She's depressed about the way people treat her."

"How do people treat you?" he asked, looking at Candice. When Stacy opened her mouth to speak, Nathan raised his hand to silence her.

"Like I'm gay." Candice replied, looking straight at Nathan.

"Why would they treat you like you're gay?"

"Because I am." She said, not ashamed about it.

"And you're depressed because you're gay?" Nathan questioned.

"No." Candice shook her head with a small smile. "I'm perfectly okay with who I am, no one can change that. I just don't like the way people behave around me, how they treat me. Calling me naming behind my back cause they're to afraid to call it to my face." I could see why they would be afraid, Candice looked like she could take care of herself.

"Okay." Nathan flipped through the pages of his notebook. "You said at the beginning of the session that you didn't like your parents. Could that be a cause of your depression?"

"I don't hate my mother." Candice replied, squeezing Stacy's hand. "My father isn't that bad neither."

"Then stepparents?" Nathan hinted.

"I only have a stepmother." There was so much hatred when she said it, I could tell she completely despised her. "She has nothing to do about my depression."

"She makes you angry, and the anger makes you depressed." Nathan stated. "Do you see a lot of your stepmother?"

"Not anymore." She smiled. "I use to live with my father and her." She practically his when she mentioned her stepmother. "She tried to boss me around like a servant. One day, she decided to grab me, so I punch her in the face, breaking her glasses. Since then I've been living with my mother."

"And her mother is the best." Stacy said, smiling up at Candice. "She let me move in when I didn't have anywhere else to go when I moved back from Arizona."

Nathan looked between the two. "Aren't you two dating though? Your mother is okay with you two living in the same house?"

"Yeah. As long as she does her part in the house, she can stay there as long as she likes."

"I also help with her depression." Stacy said.

"How long have you been going out?"

"Almost a year now." Stacy answered, smiling and squeezing Candice's hands with both of hers.

"How did you deal with your depression before you started dating?"

Candice looked down at her hand that was in Stacy's, but didn't say a thing. Neither did Stacy, but she did slowly lift Candice's sleeve of her jacket to show a few thin scars. Everyone knew what would cause them.

Candice violently shoved Stacy's hands away from her and pulled her sleeve back down. "Damn it Stacy. Everyone doesn't need to see them."

"You weren't going to answer him and he needs to know. You said you were going to try to get help. How are you suppose to get help if you just sit quietly and ignore Nathan." I could feel that Stacy was close to tears for arguing with Candice.

"I've answered all of his other questions." Candice yelled.

Stacy backed away from her Candice, suddenly afraid of her. "But you haven't answered most of the questions. I have."

"Yeah, because you can't keep your god damn nose out of where it doesn't belong." Candice's face was red from anger. She reached down to her sneaker and pulled out a knife and brought it to her wrist.

Everyone gasp, except for me. Before she even had it all of the way out, I knew that it wasn't going to do any damage. It was plastic.

"Where did you get that?" Stacy asked trying to reach for it. She hadn't seen it yet, so she still thought that it was a real knife.

"Oh, don't worry." Candice said annoyed, showing it to her. "I got if at school at lunch." She went back to sawing it across her wrist. All it did was make her wrist red.

"Stop it. You promised you mom that you wouldn't ever do that again." Stacy grabbed for the plastic knife, but Candice turned her back to her and used the back of the chair as a blockage.

"It never breaks the skin." For that I was thankful. "I do it until the anger runs out of my system. I'm coping. It's hard to just stop, so I use a plastic knife. Would you rather I use a real knife when I feel the urge?"

"Of course not." Stacy said, applied by the idea.

"Then leave me alone." she yelled back at her.

I couldn't take it anymore, so I sent out a great deal of calming feelings to both of them. Stacy was vulnerable this time so it worked and Candice accepted it immediately even though she was confused to where the emotion came from. Stacy was finally able to take the knife from her and zipped in her backpack, out of reach from Candice.

Nathan looked at the both of them for a long time, then without saying anything looked to Richard for his turn.


	7. Richard

_**Richard**_

"How do you think you can fix your problem with your addiction?"

"It can't be fixed, I've tried." Richard said, a puff of smoke coming from his mouth as he spoke.

"How have you tried fixing your problem?" Nathan asked, feeling glad that he didn't have to wait for a response.

"I've been to a class that was suppose to help me stop the addiction. It worked, for awhile." He bent his head down and came back up with more smoke to prove his point.

"Did you take the class willingly?"

Richard quietly laughed around the smoke as if the mere idea of coming here willingly was a joke to him. The only person I could think of that would come to this class willingly would be Emmett just so he could make fun of everyone here.

"Dad made him." Kim said.

"What about you mother?" Nathan asked, looking between the three family members, knowing one of them would answer if Richard didn't.

"Mom wanted him to go to." Nicholas answered. "Dad was just more forceful about it."

"Did you parents make you go to your first class?"

"No. The court did." Richard said, trying to make circles with the smoke.

Nathan raised his eyebrows. "Court?"

"Yeah." Richard said, lowered his smoke. "The dumb ass pigs pulled me over for going six miles over the speed limit. Then they searched my truck because they said that they smelled something." Richard chuckled humorlessly. "You couldn't smell shit. They ended up arresting me after finding some illegal substance in the back of my truck."

Nathan quickly wrote in his notebook, most likely writing by Richards name that he had a criminal record with drugs. "How long did you stay in jail?" Nathan asked when he was finished writing.

"Only day. My dad immediately came to spring me."

"Was that the only time you've been arrested?"

"Yeah." Rich said somewhat smugly.

"Is there anyone else in your family that has been arrested?" Nathan slightly turned his head to the left to look at Nicholas quickly before looking back at Richard.

"Our older brother Mark's been arrested three or four times for different things, mostly for drugs. Where do you think I get mine from." Richard said with a smile, taking a big puff of his joint. "Then our dad was arrested when he younger, but it wasn't for anything big." Richard laughed. "After he got out, our sisters were conceived."

Nathan looked at him for a second before changing the subject. "What are some things that you've done while you were high?"

"Well, there was this cat once." Richard said, tilting his head back over the back of the chair, looking up at the ceiling.

When he didn't continue, Nathan looked to Nicholas hoping for him to finish the story. But, unsurprisingly, Stacy was the one that spoke. "He blew smoke into the cats face, and when we set her down she couldn't walk straight."

"Then there was the time a baby alligator got into the house." Richard said. "Trying to shoot with a .22 rifle while you're high is a lot harder than you would think."

"When he finally got it after three shots, we found out that it was just a eight inch lizard." Nicholas said. "Dad got pissed when he got home and there was holes in his freshly painted walls."

"Then there are all the things that we've bet him to do." Kimberly said quietly. "He'll do anything you tell him when he's high."

"Yeah." Nicholas said. "Once when we were cleaning a deer, the blood got onto the counter and we bet Richard five dollars to lick it off the counter, and of course he did it without hesitation."

"Eww." Savannah said, disgust rolling off her. "Who would do that?"

I wonder what she would say if she knew that I did more than just lick deer blood, but actual drank it a couple times a week every week.

"And once when he was walking me home," Candice said, completely ignoring Savannah. "we walked by the a field of cows and I bet him to eat some cow shit for a dollar."

Stacy was the next one that spoke. "Once he found a frog and put a firecracker up it's butt and watched it explode. He also found some tadpoles and put them into a water shooter and shot them at everyone."

"Yeah, good times." Richard said, pulling out his smoke, not trying to hide it any more and told a long pull from it.

Kimberly looked at him and suddenly I felt a strong emotion come off of her, the same kind of emotion that I got off Emmett before he pulls one of his embarrassing pranks. "Mom and dad aren't going to like it when they find out that you're smoking."

Richard sat up in his chair and faced Kimberly. "It's an electronically cigarette. See." He pushed the hot end of the cigarette into the back of his hand for a second then put it into his chest pocket on his shirt.

Kimberly's smile grew across her face, but didn't say another word about it.

Forgetting about his cigarette, Richard turned to Nathan. "I see some weird things when I'm high too. Once me and some friends were at the lake, and I saw a huge sea turtle and crocodile floating down the river with people on top of them."

"I've told you that they were large floaties." Stacy said, feeling agitated from most likely telling him multiple times.

I heard Kimberly giggle quietly and I looked at her to see that she was watching Richard very closely. Before I could turn my head, a surprised gasp came from Richard and his chair was knocked over in his haste to stand up. Everyone watched as smoke came from Richard's chest and his shirt caught on fire. Richard stumbled toward me and from all the panic suddenly coming from the room, I freaked out and tried to stand up but ended up falling over in my chair.

Stacy, having recovered first, reached into her backpack and pulled a large water bottle and ran toward Richard while taking the lid off. Richard was beating at his chest, but stopped when Stacy threw the contents of the water bottle on him and the fire went out.

Richard thanked Stacy then looked down at his shirt. "Ah man. This was my favorite shirt."


End file.
